Coping Styles and its Association with Sources of Stress in Undergraduate Medical Students

Abstract

Context:The two ubiquitous factors that have been identified in medical courses to underlie mental health are stress and different coping styles adopted to combat stress.Aim:To find the association between coping styles and stress in undergraduate medical students.Settings and Design:A medical college in Central Kerala. A cross-sectional study design was adopted.Materials and Methods:Source and Severity of Stress Scale, Medical Student Version, was used to assess the source and nature of stress. Brief Cope was used to find out the coping styles adopted.Statistical Analysis:The statistical analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 and SAS. Chi-square analysis was used to find the association between coping styles and stress domains and with the overall stress score.Results:There is a significant positive association between overall stress score and coping styles (P=0.001) of ‘Negative cope’, ‘Blame’, and ‘Humor’. ‘Positive cope‘ and ‘Religion’ has significant positive association with ‘Academics’ (P=0.047) and 'self Expectations’ (P=0.009). ‘Blame’ (P<0.001) has very high significant positive association with ‘Academics’, 'self expectation’, and ‘Relationships’. Very high significant positive association is further found between ‘Humor’ (P<0.001) and 'self expectations’, ‘Living conditions’, and ‘Health and Value conflict’. ‘substance Use’ is positively associated in high significance to ‘Health and Value conflict’ (P<0.001).Conclusions:The outcome of the study emphasizes the need for stress management techniques in the medical school.

Level of Perceived Stress and Coping Strategies Prevailing Among 1st year Medical Undergraduate Students: A Cross-sectional Study from South India

“…11 A study by Saipanish R showed that about 61% of medical students had some degree of stress. 12 The perceived stress score found in this study among medical students was lower than that studied by Singh et al in Nursing students. 13 The participants reported using a wide range of coping strategies.…”

Relationship between Level of Stress Experienced by Dental Students during Endodontic Treatment and Their Coping Strategies

“…In other words, participants using ineffective coping strategies had higher overall stress score. Cherkil et al, [10] in 2013 reported that a significant association existed between overall stress and coping styles namely negative cope, blame and humor (which are ineffective coping strategies); their results were in line with ours. Based on the results of this study, when people use ineffective coping strategies, they cannot change the situation to overcome their stress (in contrast to the use of effective coping mechanisms).…”

“…Dental occupational stress has several complications [5][6][7][8][9]. Cherkil et al, [10] in 2013 evaluated the correlation of stress with coping mechanisms in medical students and concluded that a significant association existed between overall stress and coping styles namely negative cope, blame and humor. Kumar et al, [11] in 2009 evaluated the causes of stress in dental students in the clinical and preclinical courses.…”

The study for sources of stress and management among medical students

“…Reported results by both developed countries and developing like Canada and the US and Nepal is really surprising; burn out syndrome is seen in nearly 50% of medical students. [14][15][16] Student use different strategies to adapt with stress. For overcoming of high level of stress, students might adopt risky habits like drinking or drug abuse reported in studies by Babalola in Nigeria, Damiral in Turkey and HullSK in Ohio, USA.…”